This blog is dedicated to mysteries things from all over the world with authors view.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

The House of Faces

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In 1971, in the small Spanish village of Belmez, Maria Pereira claimed a human face spontaneously appeared on her cement kitchen floor. It wasn't long before she destroyed the floor and replaced it - and a new face promptly appeared.

More and more faces continued to appear on the floor of Maria Pereira's kitchen, attracting thousands of visitors every day. Some were male, some female, some large, and some small. In time, she discovered that the house, built around 1830, apparently stood above a graveyard used by the Romans, Spanish Muslims and then Medieval Christians.

But did Maria Pereira just paint the faces herself?

If so, she never benefited financially from all the attention. She lived a simple life in that same house and eventually died in 2004.

Paranormal fans who just love these unexplained mysteries suggest that the faces were manifested on the floor by telekinesis. This notion was based on the claim that the expressions on their faces used to change with the mood of Maria Pereira.

Of course, scientists have found it possible to analyze the molecular changes in the whitewash and prove that some fakery was involved. Many now believe that the paintings were actually created by Maria's son, Diego Pereira.

The appearances in Bélmez began on August 23, 1971, when María Gómez Cámara claimed that a human face formed spontaneously on her concrete kitchen floor. María's husband, Juan Pereira and their son, Miguel, destroyed the image with a pickaxe and new concrete was laid down. However, the Pereira story goes, a new face formed on the floor. The mayor of Bélmez was informed and forbade the destruction of the new face. Instead, the floor concrete was cut out and taken for study.

María's home was advertised to the tourists as La Casa de las Caras (The House of the Faces). By Easter of 1972 hundreds of people came to the house to see the faces. For the next 30 years the Pereira family claimed that faces continued to appear, both male and female and of different shapes,size and expressions.

The investigation

The main researchers of the Bélmez case were Hans Bender and Argumosa. Both collaborated in Bélmez and Freiburg in the early 1970s when the ostensible phenomenon began.

Bender did mention the case in passing and referred to it in some of his lectures. His crucial statement referred to the sealing of areas of the floor where some faces were in progress with a transparent plastic material:

“In Bélmez, slight changes of the faces' configuration during the period when the phenomenon was under seal and hence contributed to ensure its paranormal origin".

The faces were shown to have been painted on the concrete floor, the first with paint and later with acid, and the son of woman living in the house found to be perpetrating a hoax on the public for financial gain. In 1971, María Gómez Cámara announced the appearance of the first face on the kitchen floor, and psychic believers called it a case of "thoughtography", claiming that Cámara's thoughts had a telekinetic effect and projected images from her mind onto the floor. When she and her family began charging admission for tourists to see the faces, the mayor had a sample removed for testing. The hoax was easily revealed, and the city banned any further tourist business from being conducted at the residence. However that did not stop them, and the faces continued to appear for more than 30 years until Cámara's death in 2004.Various faces have appeared and disappeared at irregular intervals since 1971 and have been frequently photographed by the local newspapers and curious visitors. Many Bélmez residents believe that the faces were not made by human hand.

Some investigators believe that it is a thoughtographic phenomenon subconsciously produced by the owner of the house, María Gómez Cámara.

The property was known to have been a graveyard in the past, so the floor was excavated in hopes of finding whatever was causing the phenomena.

When they dig under the floor they discovered the remains of humans!

After giving the human remains a proper burial they installed a new floor. But... Two weeks later, another man's face appeared, and two weeks after that, the face of a woman surrounded by 9-15 tiny faces.

The floor was torn out a number of times, but the faces returned every time it was restored. The images were scrubbed with detergent, but though the eyes widened and the expressions changed, the pictures persisted; over time, the faces seemed to age. Chemists tested samples of the cement, but found no evidence of paints or dyes.

On May 2007, journalist Javier Cavanilles and investigator Francisco Máñez published a book called Los Caras de Bélmez, a play-on-words that means "The cheeky evils of Bélmez", where they explain the history of the scam and pointed to María's son, Diego Pereira, as author of the mysterious paintings.

Conclusion

After Reading multiple articles on this topic i came to conclusion it is a hoax! It is possible the lady thought it was all real and got fooled by her own son.